Why Affiliate Marketing Is Important in Nigeria
In its simplest term, affiliate marketing is an advertisement model in which a third party is paid for generating traffic or leads to a company’s goods and services. An affiliate marketer therefore is one who receives a commission for directing peoples’ attention to a particular company’s goods or services and the person deals with the said company. He or she is like a middle man between the company and the dealers.
Wikipedia explains it very well. According to Wikipedia,
“Affiliate marketing is a type of performance based market in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought by the affiliate’s own marketing efforts. The industry has four core players: the merchant (also known as ‘retailer’ or ‘brand’), the network (that contains offers for the affiliate to choose from and also takes care of the payments), the publisher (also known as ‘the affiliate’), and the customer. The market has grown in complexity, resulting in the emergence of a secondary tier of players, including affiliate management agencies, super-affiliates and specialized third party vendors”.
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it went further to explain that “Affiliate marketing overlaps with other internet marketing methods to some degree, because affiliates often use regular advertising methods. Those methods include organic search engine optimization (SEO), paid search engine marketing (PPC – Pay Per Click),e–mail marketing, content marketing and in some sense display advertising. On the other hand, affiliates sometimes use less orthodox techniques, such as publishing reviews of products or services offered by a partner”.
More so, it stated that, “Affiliate marketing is commonly confused with referral marketing, as both forms of marketing use third parties to drive sales to the retailer. However, both are distinct forms of marketing and the main difference between them is that affiliate marketing relies purely on financial motivations to drive sales while referral marketing relies on trust and personal relationships to drive sales”
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Our aim here is not really to explain affiliate marketing but to give a rundown on the merits of affiliate marketing. However, it became pertinent for a little preface for the benefit of those that are alien to the concept and idea of affiliate marketing. So let’s get down to business. Below are the benefits of affiliate marketing
Five Benefits Of Affiliate Marketing
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It creates Partners:
Affiliate marketing produces partners who put up a mutual relationship. The affiliate benefits and the merchant also benefits. This is called affiliate partnership. The affiliate earns and benefits through getting hosting fees through income earned and they also earn a substantial amount of money from the merchants the work with. The affiliate also has an incentive of been credited with a lead or sale when he effectively delivers traffic to the merchants website. The merchants too benefit from the arrangement. They get traffic and customers that they ordinary wouldn’t have by advertising on affiliate websites. To make it even more interesting, the dollars for advertisement are only spent when they successfully get sales through an affiliate.
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It Streamlines Advertisement:
Affiliate marketing provides merchants with the actual website to advertise. It provides the right niche. We will take a practical example to buttress this point. If a merchant is into animal production, it is best to advertise on affiliate websites that deals on issues about animal production. To be more specific, a merchant that is into poultry farming will advertise on a site that deals with poultry; its feed, medication and general knowledge about poultry farming. It will be dumb to form an affiliate partnership with a site that deals with crop production. The smart affiliate is to think and lean towards websites that covers your demographic, that is, your area of specialization. Much benefit abounds there because it provides dealers who visit that particular site. A rice merchant has no business with a site that deals on poultry. Hope you are getting the idea.
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Your advertising budget is used effectively:
We stated initially that affiliate marketing helps you pay for performance. Remember, the dollar for advertisement paid to the affiliate cannot be spent until a sale is made. The implication is that with affiliate marketing, you are sure getting returns on investment. It is quite different from other forms of advertisement investment. Waste hardly occurs and you are very certain of returns. You see, it is great and it is in the interest of everybody. It is awesome. You advertise and you only pay when there is a sale and by implication, you are only investing when the returns for investment have already been assured.
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Easy to track:
One of the most important benefits of affiliate marketing is that it is very easy to track. Things like click-through rates or views of your site as a result of a customer having viewed an affiliate web page are allowed by affiliate programs. This enables you understand which affiliates work and which ones do not. More so, it allows keep tab on how you are faring on different affiliate websites with different marketing tools.
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It brings Exposure:
A benefit of affiliate marketing is the exposure it brings and exposure is very fundamental to marketing strategy. When you have affiliates, your products or service is made known to the whole world. When you stay put on the appropriate sites, you stay in tune with the correct, targeted demographics. It also helps you create an image and build a brand name. These help you leave lasting impression on prospective customers. This will invariably lead to more sales.
Affiliate marketing is definitely good for business. You should try it today and move your business to a higher length and greater height.
